At the height of World War II on April 6th, 1943, the British Ambassador to Moscow, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, wrote a letter to Foreign Office minister Lord Reginald Pembroke in an effort to simply brighten up his day–a letter which has since become a classic piece of correspondence for reasons that will soon become obvious. The letter is indeed hilarious, and proof, if it were needed, that name­-based punnery and mild xenophobia did a roaring trade long before the Internet was fired up.

Those crazy Russians. I wonder how much vodka had to be consumed to create the sport of professional slapping. Nothing works the politburo into a tizzy like 2 shirtless dudes slapping the shit out of each other. Fast forward to about the 2:30 mark for the action…